Where do unemployed people go to read about their own problems? That question is where Issizler.org began.
When I had to leave my full-time job, I told myself: something will come up in the medium term. I never expected anything quickly. Unemployment in Turkey has always been a constant issue. It rises and falls, but it never really goes away.
I already had a sense that the economy was deteriorating. But I had not fully grasped how difficult things would be for someone who had worked in media and civil society. As foreign funding withdrew from Turkey in 2023, both sectors took a serious hit. I knew this in theory. What I hadn’t grasped was how it would affect me personally. Understanding the truth is one thing; living inside it is another.
A never-ending wave of rejection
I tried all the common routes: Sending out many applications and letting friends and former colleagues know I was looking for work. These are the most familiar strategies. But after a while I realized I had become something like a ghost in the job market. Most of my applications disappeared into silence.
Every morning, the first thing I did was check my inbox. Was there any news, any reply from somewhere I had applied? Most of the time, there was nothing. When a response did arrive, it was often a direct rejection. Most of the time, they gave no explanation as to why.
After a while, I felt it clearly: There is a wall around many organizations. You could reach their human resources team only indirectly. Getting through to actual people is nearly impossible. You begin to ask yourself whether the problem is you or them. And most of the time, no answer comes.
Even making it past an initial evaluation is not enough. Every job application process has multiple phases. It is hard to see how things are progressing. Many organizations leave applications floating in empty space, with a policy of only notifying those they want to move forward. That silence is itself a problem. And even when you do advance further into the process, you can still be ghosted with no warning. There are no regulations.
I experienced this directly: After three personal interviews and one task assignment, I could not get a response. I had to send two emails and two WhatsApp messages just to receive a rejection.
I was not alone in this. Once I started talking about my situation, I started hearing the same story from those around me — both from people who had been recently fired and from people who had been looking for a job for months. Sending CVs into the void. No human touch. Unanswered emails. A broken governmental mechanism for the unemployed.
Somewhere in those conversations, a question started to form: If we keep talking about this problem, why isn’t anyone documenting it? Why isn’t this knowledge being shared, this issue being tracked, when it’s too significant to leave in the hands of politicians alone? And then I came to a final question, the one that stuck with me: Where do unemployed people actually go, to read, to share, to find support throughout the job search?
The view from a Project Developer
For me, the problem was entirely real and concrete. As someone with a background in project development, I found myself inevitably asking: What can media and activism do here? Where do unemployed people go to read and share about their situation, to process that experience together, and to build something out of it? That question became İşsizler.org.
What is İşsizler?
İşsizler.org will be a platform that brings unemployed people together, examines the institutions and services they encounter during their job search, and works toward solutions. It will make the macroeconomic causes of unemployment visible, tell its human story not through statistics but through real-life accounts, and advocate for the transformation of public policy.
In Turkey, broadly defined unemployment hovers between 27 and 32 percent; among young people, the NEET rate — those neither actively employed nor seeking education — has reached 31 to 33 percent.
Despite this huge unemployment rate, there is no comprehensive mechanism that systematically researches it, carries people’s voices, and brings them together. The unemployed are isolated from one another, unorganized; their experiences dissolve into the flow of social media.
The platform will operate along two main lines: Desk and field work. At the desk, research will be conducted, policy recommendations will be developed, and findings will be shared with the public. In the field, direct meetings with unemployed people will be held, a safe space for sharing experiences will be created, and collaborative practices will be put into action. Solidarity, activism, journalism, and a human perspective. These are the core values of Issizler.org.
